If you’ve been a part of the ChinesePod community for a while, you’ll probably be admiring the new look for 2006. Read on, and you’ll discover that beauty is more than skin deep…
However, before we look at all the great new features, let’s put the changes into context by describing ChinesePod’s On Demand Training System. Effective language acquisition occurs in 4 stages – first we encounter new language, then we cognitively engage with it until we understand it, then we fit it into our existing knowledge by exploring how it relates to existing language, and finally we apply it through real, meaningful interaction and communication with others. When these four steps are complete, we have successfully acquired the new language.
ChinesePod’s On Demand Training System provides you with all four steps, in a convenient format that fits your lifestyle.
Those steps are:
Step1: Listen
Everyday you receive new language through the podcasts. There are no changes for 2006 here you’ll be glad to know, but as ever we are working hard to improve the audio quality, and Ken and Jenny will continue to come up with creative ways to make the shows relevant, interesting, and motivating.
Step 2: Review
After listening to the new language, you need to see the written characters in the transcript, vocabulary, and sample sentences, (which can still be downloaded in pdf form or received directly through e-mail, to make it easy to study wherever’s convenient for you). Then you should engage with the language in the review features that accompany each podcast, which include review exercises, sample sentences, and audio recordings of each sentence and word. Finally, you can still save learned words into your personal word bank and then use the flash cards to test your recall.
Step 3: Explore
When you come across new grammar and sentence patterns in the podcasts, you can follow a link to the new grammar bank section. This provides you with 5 minute presentations that explore the sentence pattern and how to use it with a variety of vocabulary and in a variety of situations, greatly expanding your language awareness. It also provides links to other podcasts that feature the same sentence patterns. Also, you can now search vocabulary according to semantic categories, relationships with other words, and also references in the wiki, allowing you to easily expand your knowledge.
Step 4: Apply
The key to all language acquisition is to use new language in a social context to communicate. Chinesepod provides a variety of ways for you to interact and collaborate with other students, Ken, Jenny and the Chinesepod team, and the community, through comments on podcasts, the blog, and the wiki, but now there are two important new features that support your efforts to apply what you have learned. First, for those of you who are lucky enough to have a native speaker of Mandarin able to help you practice, we have provided simple teacher training materials to help them teach you effectively using Chinesepod materials. Secondly, if you need help finding someone to practice with you can visit BabelPod.com, the language learner’s community site.
As well as including the new features, we hope the new design presents the sites’ resources more clearly. You can now find all the learning resources in the learning center, and all the podcasts in the podcast archive.
Last but not least, in response to listener feedback, we have added a new choice of subscription level. In addition to the full premium subscription, which includes all the services above and is still just USD 30 per month, there is a new basic subscription for only USD 9 per month, which provides you with the daily e-mailed PDF allowing you to review the transcript, vocabulary and sample sentences.
To try the service for a week, just sign up for a free trial.
I just signed up for the basic level service, because I really needed a transcript with the New Year’s intermediate lesson. It helped a lot, but I have a suggestion. Could the pinyin be arranged into words rather than spaced by syllables? It would make it easier to look up words in the dictionary and is would make the pinyin easier to read.
Like the new format, however some errors: a lot of 5s behind such words as ma i.e. “ma5″ and a’s and i’s appear as small squares in my word bank which I hope has already been pointed out. All this since the new format appeared over new year.
I think $30 per month is a lot of money, especially in China, for a full subscription. Not saying your service isn’t worth it, just the avergage teacher here is making $500-$800 a month.
Why not just make the entire subscription $9…not trying to be offensive, just stating my opinion.
Its my first week I’m just checking out your podcasts, and literature and you seem to have one thing same as everyone else
very tiny Chinese characters. For learners at least type the chinese characters a little bigger so I can see al the little strokes
without having to magnify the page!
seem a pretty fun way to learn, I will probably be subscribing.
Bye the way here in the UAE the British Council want $75 per week for 6 hours tuition in English.HOwever thats live, you should pitch a little lower for payment in RMB maybe
Hello to all at ChinesePod. I am really enjoying the free lessons and wanted to say thank you for extending the premium services another week. I have benefited from this service and I hope that it continues to grow. However, continuing the conversation about the price of the full subscription. . .I do find it a bit pricy as well. I have subscribed to the basic services and regret the fact that I won’t be able to partake of the premium subscription within a few days. The full subscription is great, but as a student I just cannot afford it. But I do hope that as you grow you will consider lowering the premium service price. Peace.
This is a great podcast, and I have recommended it to my friends who are learning Chinese. It would be great if you had occasional “advanced” lessons, too! Keep up the good work!
Have you renamed the podcasts with the chinese characters? I think this has stopped them working in yahoo podcasts
man!! i luv my chinesepod podcasts!! i look forward to it everyday!! im for sure gonna subscribe…but i do agree that it is a bit pricy. i can afford it now that im in the u.s. but if i were still in china, it’d almost be a ridiculous price to pay. still even as a u.s. student, i still find it a bit pricy…but hope it pays off!! =D
I am thoroughly enjoying your PodCasts. One question/suggestion: is it possible to publish the podcasts without the introductions (for members at least)? I have all the PodCasts on my 2Gb Nano at the moment and the 100-odd files take up more than half the space! Without the 30-45s introductions/music, this would take up considerably less space. Another alternative would be to offer the files at different bitrates; maybe 64kbs, 128 kbs and 192kbs?
My question to anyone: is it possible to easily cut out the first 30s of a file and then put it back onto your iPod?
Thanks and keep on the good work.
I’ll be subscribing also… just planning out which subscription package is the best for me at the moment… thank you for extending the service also
u could the files on ur comp and only upload the neccessary ones to your nano?
Am so happy i have a 30GB ipod! but Alan i think i can chop some off, but the only way i can think of doing it may take a while for each one
Reply to Alan re cutting out the introductions on Podcasts.
I use a program called Total Recorder. It’s only $11.95 to purchase. I’ve had it for years and use it to record and edit.
http://www.highcriteria.com/
It should be possible to do it with audacity as well, available for free at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Thanks for your suggestions, in regards to cutting out the introductions. However, this approach would require me to download each MP3, cut out the introduction and then upload them to my iPod. Since I am downloading through iTunes, they are in an iTunes format (which I can’t edit), so I would need to download each of the MP3s manually if I wanted to edit them.
Alan,
I recommend mp3splt (weird spelling, great program). Download it free from http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net. It works with a command line so you could conceivably write a batch file that would cut out the first 30 seconds of each file. Then you could use a batch rename utility to give the resulting files the same name as the originals. Should take 1/2 hour to write the batch file and 10 minutes to split all the files. You will probably still need to manually download since I doubt it works with iTunes format.
Let me also mention that I rate this podcast an easy #1 on my list. I also agree that the pricing structure is a bit high. If anybody can charge that much, though, Chinesepod could. Top quality!
Also, I am enjoying the shortened introductions. Especially since Ken is becoming more fluent in his introductory comments.
Keep up the good work!
Ed
Thank you for the free trial, unfortunately, I would really like to be a full time subscriber but US $30.00 a month is a bit pricy. Hope you will be able to reduce it to attract more users like I am.
I really enjoyed your program and recommended to all my friend.
Thanks again!
I am learning tons from Chinese Pod, no doubt. After my free week in the learning center I found that it is quite good. I found the review exercises a bit easy though, especially for the intermediate lessons. The review exercises did not really reflect the difficulty of the lessons.
Also, I found that often the hardest part of the intermediate lessons was understanding what Jenny and Ken were talking about between the scripted dialogues. It’s too bad the learning center doesn’t cover at least some of the vocabulary used by Jenny and Ken off the script. I think that would be very useful. Phrases such as ‘for example’, ‘let’s begin’, ‘the next one is’, ”until next time’, ‘this one is verb’ should be covered somewhere.
The example sentences with the same vocabulary items written in Chinese is a great feature. I just listened to all of those and tried to transcribe them in pinyin. That was the most useful part for me. The grammar bank is good but it’s only for basic stuff.
In the end, I I have to say that it’s still a bit expensive for me. I’m a student, so $30 a month hurts. In the future, I’ll sign up!
Thanks for everything!
I just discoverd the site. It is great and i am wondering about suscribing to the premium services. By the moment I am having problems to download the files to my cheap mp3 device. Any hint in order to be able to listen the podcasts in my mp3?
Thanks everybody and thanks chinesepod
dani
Hello, everybody! THis is a great website, but i am wondering how can i listen the files in my MP3 device. I tried to download in the MP3 but they dont work. Should i buy an Ipod in order to listen the lessons meanwhile i am jogging?
Thanks for your help
Best regards
Dani
Hi,
in reply to Dani
I don’t have an ipod and can download directly to my mp3. plug in mp3 to computer, right click on the link, then select ’save as…’ and choose your removable disk selection. I find it takes about 2 minutes to download.
in reply to all comments about price:
if you sign up for a year it’s only $20/month. how much would lessons cost for a lesson everyday at a language school? I think it’s reasonably price even for China - 160RMB a month is 8 beers @ 20rmb a month or 2 beers a week. I think I’ll give up the two beers a week!
To the chinesepod team:
Keep up the good work - more lessons about China’s social changes would be good.
Sally
Dear Chinesepod–I’m really enjoying your high-quality and most enjoyable service! As a teacher myself (music) I really appreciate not only the thought and planning that obviously goes into each lesson, but also the superb teaching skill (and good humor) of both of you, Jenny and Ken! Topics are almost always interesting to me, and I learn something from all the levels.
Ordinarily there’s not much new in the newbie levels for me, but I always listen, and usually pick up something new, or at least a new usage or nuance of something familiar. The elementary level lessons are probably the ones I learn the most from–much of it is usually familiar, but always there is something new and extremely useful.
To me, the intermediate level is quite a jump up from the elementary. An in-between level would be perfect for me–I wonder if you’ve considered such a thing? Anyway, I always do listen to the intermediate level lessons, and truly enjoy the explanatory conversations between Ken and Jenny, even though I don’t understand too much of it, especially the first time through. I do like the opportunity to just listen to the language being freely spoken at a level and speed not TOO much above me!
If you did want to consider a new level between elementary and intermediate, what I would love would be set conversations a notch or two more difficult than the elementary, and fully explained, as in the elementary, and at least some “real” conversation between the two of you as in the intermediate, but maybe not quite as rapid speech. (Maybe that is more than would fit into the time frame?)
In any case, just as it is, I think Chinesepod is fabulous! I’ll definitely keep my membership, and will be interested to see how it evolves over time! I may upgrade to premium when I have more time on my hands to take full advantage of it.
Very best wishes! Dan
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How does one say ’spam’ in Chinese. At least I can say 讨厌 tao3 yan4, which basically means “It bugs the (&^%&* out of me.”
Tao Yan ‘explanation from a dictionary.
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/c.....8%E5%8E%8C
Some examples: (Provided As-Is, no returns, exchanges or warranties implied!)
我讨厌。
我讨厌他。
我讨厌那个男的。
他不礼貌，我讨厌。
你干妈， 我讨厌！
他们正在计较，讨厌那么大声计较。
Chinese Pod is a useful resource.
I’d like to subscribe but the full subscription is high by any standards and way over the top given my salary in China.
One more thing, and I know from all the positive comments that I’ll be in a minority here, but I do find Ken (the powerhouse behind all this) to be too verbose and overpowering during podcasts, to the point that it sometimes detracts from the learning points being made.
I have recommended ChinesePod to friends and I’ll continue to do so.
Chinese Pod is a useful resource.
I’d like to subscribe but the full subscription is high by any standards and way over the top given my salary in China.
One more thing, and I know from all the positive comments that I’ll be in a minority here, but I do find Ken (the powerhouse behind all this) to be too verbose and overpowering during podcasts, to the point that it sometimes detracts from the learning points being made.
I have recommended ChinesePod to (wealthier) friends and I’ll continue to do so.
Assume that a subsriber will pay up for a yearly subscription and access the premium resources 365 days a year, that’s a good deal. Assume that the same subscriber is not Chinese and works in that great metropolis which is Shanghai and really, well, it’s peanuts.
Actually, there is a China that extends beyond Shanghai. Perhaps the Chinesepod.com team could dwell on this in terms of pricing AND lesson content. I truly wish I could subscribe on a lesson by lesson basis, or even subsribe to a block of say ten lessons.
……..the bit of China outside of Shanghai is actually quite big.
Dear Ken and Jenny,
This website is the best one I have found so far for learning chinese. Not only is it easy to use, but the podcasts are free and the dialogues really interesting and well constructed. I really respect the work that both of you and your whole team must do, as it is reallly impressive to build a project like this! Every day walking to and from work I listen to a lesson or two, and I truly believe that you have almost mastered the learning style between the two worlds. On one side, repeating a lot (maybe not enough sometimes) so as to drill the vocab in Chinese Style, and then also expanding on the already useful sentences. It’s the first type of class where we learn concrete day to day useful idioms, rather than words about butterflies, seeing flowers open or ancient culture are hard to remember at the start.
Your hands on, top down approach is really great, and I wanted to thank you for what you do, as putting in real life context is always the best way to learn, especially when one works and doesn’t have that much time to continue improving one’s chinese.
Although I am also an adept at finding free things all over the internet in order to learn Chinese (like the Pimsleur classes, really great also), I am honestly going to sign up for membership once I go back to France, when I’ll have more time to really study the characters and the sentence structures in detail again. I only HAD one remark, which was to expand the examples in different contexts when using new idioms (like 最好之一） but I think that thanks to feedback, you are already implementing this a lot in your new classes. Keep up the interactivity and ‘consumer demand service’ as if you stick to what people really want to learn, then we’ll keep coming back for more!
Considering your business plan, if I were you, I would do an ‘all inclusive’ formula once it catches on, and really give membership for the whole site, which is what usually happens after a while, making us pay for the mp3s also. However, I would also consider lowering the price of subscription (and making it possible for a yearly one also once it picks up), as ‘product and price’ are the two most important elements, and it seems to everyone that it is very expensive (even I, although I think the lessons are ‘worth a pot of gold’…). However, the mentality concerning internet services is that they are either FREE or really cheap, since we all believe that we can find it elsewhere or download it off a P2P for free…
I also say this in self-interest, as I know that the more you get paid for the hard work you do, the better the podcasts will be, the larger your team will grow (then so will the number of lessons), and interest will also grow in your ‘product’, which I would say is one of the best in the market place today! Especially due to the fact that it is easily accessible on internet, and that it is updated regularly.
Really great job all in all, I recommend this site to all my friends who seriously try to learn Chinese (as I have also been there and I know how difficult it is to start). I think that will all the material available, it really makes the task easier. Really valuable website!
I wish you lots of luck and chenggong! Keep up the good work!
Beny